In which I explain the power of sports marketing to my 5-year-old son

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There are moments I dread as a parent, all of which involve having to explain stuff. It could be a billboard for a horror movie, an overheard comment in a store about a three-way or just a very basic question about why the sky is blue, which has something to do with reflecting the ocean, or vice versa or maybe not at all. …

Life is so much better since I cut the cord

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I am constantly looking for new ways to insult people. Not to be mean, but to make myself feel superior. My newest target is “digital hoarders.”

These people are wasting hours editing their online photos, organizing their MP3s, scrolling through old emails, sifting through shows on their DVRs and struggling with which of my columns to save on their hard drive to reread a fourth time. …

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary and expertise on the most compelling events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. To submit a piece, email ideas@time.com.

As a concierge at a tony L.A. hotel, I test my ability to please the 1 percent

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While everyone else whines about income inequality, I’m doing something about it: learning how to kiss up to the 1%. Just as our ancestors searched for holy grails and husbanded falcons for royalty, I’m going to cater to the desires of billionaires, which seems to mostly involve making political ads and pressing juice.

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary and expertise on the most compelling events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. To submit a piece, email ideas@time.com.

This Is What It’s Like to Write a Hit Song With Kenny Loggins

We not only wrote a song, we recreated SNL's famous cow bell skit

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When Kenny Loggins agreed to let me write a song with him for a column, I had no idea how seriously he’d take it. This is largely because no one had taken me seriously before.

We spent more than 12 hours writing, and then he brought me into the recording studio to play cowbell on the song, which took hours to record, with so much doubling and tripling and multiple tracks that made me realize you don’t become Kenny Loggins without at lot of hard work. He also made me wear a wig and costume for a promotional video I don’t completely understand but fully enjoyed. Also, there were a lot of dinners involved. All of which I feel good about expensing.

Although I demanded to be fully credited as a writer on the song, I mostly just sat there and said, “That’s great!” and whistled in a really bad way that made everyone in the recording studio laugh and say, “That’s perfect!” in a way that meant it wasn’t at all perfect. Still, I got to play on a Kenny Loggins song. Or, more accurately, a Kenny Loggins/Joel Stein song. Or, if my lawyers win, a Joel Stein/Kenny Loggins song. Kenny doesn’t know about the lawyer thing yet.

I present the worldwide exclusive of the next Kenny Loggins hit. Or, again, technically, the first Joel Stein/Kenny Loggins hit. (It’s also an homage to the classic cow bell skit on Saturday Night Live.)

And it turns out he understands gadget moderation better than I do

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My wife and I are not helicopter parents. My son is 5, and I’m fine letting him go alone to the park, attend birthday parties by himself, make his own dinner or fly his own helicopter. Unfortunately, however, we have a helicopter child. There are few moments when Laszlo isn’t physically touching me or my wife. …

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary and expertise on the most compelling events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. To submit a piece, email ideas@time.com.

Welcome to TIME’s subscriber Q&A with TIME columnist, Joel Stein, who wrote this week’s cover story on his experience working with the “sharing economy” companies such as Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, RelayRides, Yerdle and others. He is the author of Man Made: A Stupid Quest For Masculinity.

deconstructive asks, Joel, thanks for your detailed story on the sharing economy. We can indeed enjoy the potential benefits of peer-to-peer deals and cutting out some of the middleman. But of course, however, there is the flip side, aka the dark side - risks of people assuming liabilities (that companies would traditionally take one) and missing out on protections under government regulation - as Uber is famous for skirting around regulations. But perhaps an even worse risk is to the job market itself as sharing companies' "creative destruction" displaces jobs - cab drivers may not always be the most pleasant people, but they have to eat too, and not all may be able to get jobs with Uber. Hotel workers too when home-sharing takes off, etc. So how do YOU think we can solve the problems of displacing jobs and liabilities so everyone (literally) can truly benefit from sharing and access - and still remain employed at a living wage?

My wild ride through the new on-demand economy

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Some French guy has my car. He seemed nice enough—a little sweaty from walking up the hill to my house, but I’ve got faux-leather seats that are easy to wipe clean. I’m renting it to him for $27 a day through RelayRides, a company that facilitated my transition from “dude with a car” to “competitor with Hertz.” The French guy visited me a day early on a practice walk to make sure he could find my place, which is tucked away up a bunch of steep, winding roads. When I saw his sweaty face, I just gave him the keys to my yellow Mini Cooper convertible instead of having him hike back the next day. He returned the car …

Trust me, students, you do not want to see the comments on your application

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I’m not an introspective guy. When people invite me to lunch, assign me work or read my column at the doctor’s office, I assume it’s because they love me unconditionally. But during my junior year at Stanford, I was bedeviled by insecurity. My girlfriend dumped me. My parents broke up. …

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary and expertise on the most compelling events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. To submit a piece, email ideas@time.com.

My audition to replace Tom Bergeron

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When I was in second grade, I asked my parents what the Vice President did. They told me that the second most important person in the country didn’t have any responsibilities whatsoever. For the next five years, I told people that when I grew up, I wanted to be the Vice President.

TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary and expertise on the most compelling events in news, society, and culture. We welcome outside contributions. To submit a piece, email ideas@time.com.

Silicon Valley's top investors predict a big year for bitcoin, extruded gastronomy and me

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Predictions are snare traps for egomaniacs. That’s because, unlike me, they only think they know everything. I, however, have a deep understanding of how the world is shifting because I’ve been to Silicon Valley.

All the changes happening in the world come from there, as long as you define the world as upper-class, urban-dwelling, college-educated young people who constantly stare at their phones. …